the subtext and all the overtones
by elanev91
Summary: Because I couldn't resist writing a smutty follow up to 'we could be gigantic' - and also I'm still trash for the Wombats (hence the title)


**Because I'm a ho and couldn't resist. As the Miraculers say, throw me in the sin bin.**

 **Also — happy birthday, James Potter xx**

* * *

 _SMS Messaging_

 _28 January 2012 - 17:04_

 _James Potter: I know I just said goodbye to you like two hours ago but god Lily I miss you_

 _Lily Evans: Omg and here I thought I was the only one being really pathetic about this today_

 _James Potter: nope. We're definitely in this together_

* * *

 _SMS Messaging_

 _6 February 2012 - 23:57_

 _James Potter: HELLO FROM ABERDEEN XXX_

 _James Potter: *img.394*_

 _Lily Evans: LOOK AT THAT FUCKING CROWD! JAMES!_

 _James Potter: Evans. What are you doing awake._

 _James Potter: You have work tomorrow. Go to bed._

 _Lily Evans: Yes MUM, christ_

 _7 February 2012 - 00:04_

 _James Potter: goodnight, love xxxxx_

 _Lily Evans: Good night xxxxxx_

* * *

 _SMS Messaging_

 _11 February 2012 - 00:23_

 _James Potter: Dublin loves us_

 _James Potter: *img.432*_

 _James Potter: oh and have this… I think you'll like it xx_

 _James Potter: *vid.31*_

 _11 February 2012 - 06:34_

 _Lily Evans: OUR SONG!_

 _Lily Evans: GOD JAMES LOOK AT YOUR FACE_

 _Lily Evans: I MISS YOU SO MUCH_

* * *

 _SMS Messaging_

 _14 February 2012 - 08:52_

 _James Potter: I can't believe I'm spending our first official Valentine's Day apart :'(_

 _Lily Evans: …_

 _Lily Evans: It's not really that big a deal. You know I don't care about v day_

 _James Potter: I'm rolling my eyes at you_

 _Lily Evans: You usually are ;)_

 _09:31_

 _Lily Evans: JAMES_

 _James Potter: yes, love?_

 _Lily Evans: *img.287*_

 _James Potter: Happy Day You Dont Care About_

 _Lily Evans: You're absurd_

 _Lily Evans: (Thank you xxxx)_

 _James Potter: you're welcome xxxx_

* * *

 _SMS Messaging_

 _20 February 2012 - 00:03_

 _James Potter: Sheffield says hello!_

 _James Potter: *img.472*_

 _06:13_

 _Lily Evans: !_

 _Lily Evans: Call me when you get up and let me know how it went xxxxx_

* * *

 _SMS Messaging_

 _28 February 2012 - 00:01_

 _James Potter: GREETINGS FROM THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTHAMPTON_

 _James Potter:*img.653*_

 _James Potter: THE CROWD TONIGHT WAS AMAZING_

 _James Potter: GOD I CAN'T WAIT TO GO ON TOUR AGAIN_

 _00:12_

 _James Potter: also Evans_

 _James Potter: I'm going to see you in less than 24hrs_

 _James Potter: I cannot fucking wait xxxxxxx_

 _06:02_

 _Lily Evans: That makes two of us xxxxx_

* * *

When James wakes up in the hotel the next morning, the first thing he does is grab his mobile off the bedside table and click into his messaging app. He'd had a notification and — he can barely contain the very embarrassing sound that nearly escapes him — it's from Lily.

When Sirius wakes up fifteen minutes later and whips James over the head with a pillow for "waking me up with your fucking giggling," James totally deserves it.

Still, he can't bring himself to settle. He's restless the entire drive back to London, moves at double time as they're unpacking the van — Remus finally snaps and tells him to "go on a fucking run before we murder you," and James reins himself in just enough to avoid having to find his trainers.

He _is_ exhausted — he can feel it lingering just underneath the manic energy that's overtaken him — but the excitement coursing through him is too great and so the energy wins out.

The mania will burn itself out eventually.

Despite the fact that he's all over the place for most of the day, driving back to London and then unpacking all his shit and having a row with Remus and Sirius about who was supposed to get someone to water the plant before they'd gone on tour, the afternoon absolutely drags on (especially once Sirius demands that he and Remus go to the garden centre _immediately_ to replace the plant that "James killed" and James is left alone in the flat). He's got some tour wrap up things to attend to, though, so he doesn't mind being abandoned in the flat — there are press calls to answer, a giant box of albums to sign, a phone meeting with Kay — but through it all, he finds his mind wandering to the mobile sitting in his pocket, the one that's buzzed at the most inopportune times today.

The one that has four messages from Lily on it when he's finally able to take five minutes to check the bloody thing late that afternoon.

He grabs the box of freshly signed albums and sets them back by the door so they remember to take them to Kay's office the next time they're there, dials Lily's number, and presses the phone to his ear as he walks into his room.

'About time.' She's trying to sound stern, but he can hear the smile in her voice.

'Sorry, Evans,' he sandwiches the phone against his shoulder and starts digging through his wardrobe. 'I had a box of CDs that needed my signature, and if I'd gone one more afternoon without signing them, Kay would've drowned me in the Thames.'

She laughs, 'Well we can't have that,' before she's quiet for a beat. 'Did you get my message?'

He grabs his wool jacket from the back corner of his wardrobe (how the fuck it got there is beyond him) and looks down at the t shirt he's wearing. He hesitates for a moment before he reaches back, pulls it over his head, and tosses it into the laundry basket in the corner.

'Which one?' he asks, hoping to god that his teasing distracts her from the all the rustling on his end. He grabs a long sleeve shirt off the hanger and lays it onto the bed beside the coat, stares at it for a long moment.

'You know the one, you git.'

'The one about the dog you saw on your walk to work this morning?'

She sighs and James represses a laugh as he turns back to his wardrobe and flicks through some more shirts.

'Well, that one was important,' she says, 'but no, not that one.'

' _Oh,_ you mean the one about whether or not I'm doing anything tonight.' James pulls out a long sleeve that he thinks might be that one his parents got him for his birthday last year, but is really just an old LIPA one that he'd gotten curry on and that, for some reason, he's still got.

'Yes, James. Obviously.' He knows that he's annoyed her now, but really, how is he supposed to resist teasing her?

'I haven't got anything going on tonight,' he says. 'Why do you ask?'

He really just wants her to say the words, and he suspects that she knows that because she sighs instead of continuing to try and dance around the subject.

'Fancy meeting me tonight?'

He smiles as he turns back to his wardrobe and starts looking for a better shirt.

'Are you asking me on a date?' He can't keep the grin out of his voice, but he also can't bring himself to care. He wants her to know just how happy he his, how excited he is at the prospect.

She groans quietly, clearly a little embarrassed. 'I thought we were past this.'

' _Evans._ ' He's smiling so broadly he almost can't get it out.

She sighs. 'Yes, you great prat, of course I'm asking you on a date.'

'What kind of date have you got in mind?'

He gives up on his shirts and starts searching on the top shelf of his wardrobe — finally, he spots the warm, auburn coloured jumper Lily'd gotten him for Christmas a few years before. He tugs it down over his head and knocks his glasses askew in his haste.

'Dinner?' She says it so quickly that James has to laugh.

'I thought we were past being awkward about this,' he says.

She breathes a laugh and he can almost imagine the tension flooding out of her expression, the lines on her forehead smoothing out. 'Shut up. Are you free for dinner or not?'

'I'm always free for you, Evans. Where're you taking me?'

He meets her outside the Whitechapel tube station about an hour later.

She presses up onto her toes when he reaches her, and he can't help being just a bit surprised when his hand settles easily onto her hip as she kisses him. He shouldn't be surprised, not after Liverpool, but it still doesn't seem real.

She smiles at him as she pulls back, takes his hand, and starts walking them down the street.

'How was your day?'

He opens his mouth to reply, but Lily holds up a hand. 'If you say "better now that I'm with you" I'm going to push you in front of a bus.'

He bursts into laughter, shakes his head at her as he squeezes her hand and pulls her closer into his side.

'You know me too well.' He tries to stick his lip out in a pout, but it's only mildly effective because he can't get the smile off his face.

She rolls her eyes at him. 'You love it.'

'Yeah,' he says, and though he doesn't mean for it to happen, he hears the weight of what he's saying in his tone, hears the words he isn't quite saying hovering just underneath. 'I do.'

She looks at him for a moment, slowing her steps a bit, and he thinks she might stop them in the middle of the pavement, but she reaches across with her free hand instead, takes hold of his bicep and rests her cheek there for a moment before she picks up the pace again.

It's there, just then, everything they aren't yet ready to say. And though part of him is bursting with it, the impulse to lay it all out on the table, he knows they need a little more time. He's sure about her, about this, but the immensity of it — it's bigger than anything has ever been and they're only just getting started. She's everything, already, and so he's fine with taking it a bit slower, with taking a moment to breathe.

Maybe he should be a bit scared of this, of how _ready_ he is, but he can't be. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn't know how to be.

She's always been everything to him, and so feeling this? Now? It's as natural and as easy as breathing.

She takes him to a Punjabi restaurant off Fieldgate Street, one she's apparently been eyeing because she doesn't talk to James for the first ten minutes after they arrive, just stares at all the food in the cases up front while they wait to be seated. It's like pulling teeth, dragging her away when the host starts leading them towards their table at the back of the restaurant, but Lily eventually sighs and says that they'll just have to look a bit more before they leave.

It's still a bit early into the dinner rush, so most of the tables are vacant. The host leads them to a booth in the far corner, a fair few feet away from the group nearest them. They thank the host as they shrug out of their jackets and slide into seats opposite one another, place their drink order when the waiter stops by a moment later.

Lily smiles at James as the waiter steps away. 'I'm glad you agreed to this place, I've been wanting to come here for ages.'

James chuckles as he picks up his menu and starts scanning it. 'I figured that out when I practically had to bribe you to stop staring at the food out front.'

She swats him lightly with her menu and James just laughs.

They chat about nothing while they scan through their menus, little things James saw on the Tube on the way to meet her, things Lily overheard in the Commons that day. He's in the middle of telling her an incredibly riveting story about the houseplant that he, Remus, and Sirius had bought before they went on tour and he's mid-gesture when he catches the look on her face, thoughtful, like she's working something through in her head.

'Evans?'

'Sorry,' she shakes her head like she's clearing out whatever she's thinking about. 'Continue.'

He shakes his head. 'No. What were you thinking about?'

'I'm just so glad you're home,' she says, smiling softly at him. 'I missed you.'

James reaches across the table and threads his fingers through hers.

'I missed you, too.'

James slides his hand back across the table when the waiter returns with their drinks, resists the urge to reach out and take her hand again after they place their order. Lily leans across the table, eyes him as she takes a sip of her drink.

'So,' she sets her drink back down onto the table top with a bit more flourish than is strictly necessary, and James bites back a smile. 'Tell me about tour.'

Dinner flies by, as he should've expected it to — they don't stop talking, not once in the whole time they're there. They laugh just as easily, just as often as they ever did, and they don't miss any opportunity to tease one another. The only thing that's different, really, is the way he feels when he's looking at her, the way his chest aches when she smiles at him or when she's laughing at something he's said. The way that he's letting himself feel it now instead of maintaining this constant narrative in his head that's reminding him to get it together.

The way that he sometimes catches her looking at him, like she's just as bloody happy as he is.

He's not sure what he expected, dating Lily — maybe he thought it'd be different, but all in all, so much of it feels the same. It's probably because he's known her forever, because he's more comfortable with her than he is with anyone else in the world — it's easy, falling into this with her.

He leans over and presses a kiss to her temple as she pulls her coat on when they get up from their seats an hour or so later, and when she turns and smiles at him as they walk back towards the front of the restaurant, it's like the whole world is opening up in front of him. He's seen her smile before, seen it a million times, but there's something wholly different about this one.

Sirius would probably say that it's his sentimental heart seeing things that don't exist, but the way that his heart swells in his chest when she smiles at him just then — it's real and he feels it everywhere.

James watches her linger around the cases after they've finished paying the bill, stands patiently off to the side as she looks at tray after tray of desserts and tries to decide what she wants to take home with them. She finally decides on balushahi and jalebi, and though she tells him that they're going to eat them when they get back to her flat, James knows that they will be lucky if they even survive the walk to the tube station.

Her hand is warm in his twenty minutes later (desserts long gone, bag binned when they transferred at Mile End) as they exit the tube station and start up Church towards her flat. She's swinging their hands lightly between them, a bright, beautiful smile on her face as they chat about the details of her day, the things they somehow hadn't gotten to over dinner. Looking at her now, hearing the passion in her voice — he can't believe that it took him as long as it did to realise just how he felt about her.

'So _then,_ ' Lily squeezes his hand softly to stop him walking right across the road when they reach the junction, 'Minerva comes into my office and shuts the door, and I'm fucking screaming inside my head, right, because I have no idea what she wants and what if I fucked something up without knowing it, you know?'

James can hardly believe that she would fuck something up at work _let alone_ not know about it if she did, but he hums his acknowledgement as they start across the street.

Lily's smile gets wider as they start up the hill. 'She — James. She just wanted to come into my office to complain about David! I got to sit in my office with Minerva and _get paid_ to talk about what a twat David Cameron is.'

James laughs. 'That's like your ideal day, then.'

'It was! I also started researching today for the second reading of the bill we're going to try and get through this year, too. And _then_ I got off work and had dinner with you. All in all,' she looks up at him then, squeezes his hand, 'my perfect day.'

James lifts their joined hands, leans down a bit, and brushes a kiss along the back of her hand. He feels Lily's eyes on him as he straightens, feels the intensity there when his eyes find hers. He holds her gaze for a moment, his stomach starting to tie itself in anticipatory knots.

They chat easily the rest of the walk up the hill towards Lily's flat — he tells her more stories from the road, she talks him through some of the other things she's working on with Minerva (and explains the parliamentary process to him for what has to be the fifth time). They've come around to the Olympics by the time they've reached her building, and James is breathless with laughter as Lily rails against every single bit of it.

'It's all anyone wants to fucking talk about!' she whisper-shouts as they begin making their way up the stairs. 'And in the fucking Commons it's all "we're going to put on a brilliant show" and "what a great year for Britain" and all that fucking nonsense about how "you can't strike because it's a celebration for the whole nation," and James,' she gives him an exasperated look as she unlocks the door, 'I swear to god, I'm going to kill someone if I have to listen to it one more fucking time. And — _and —_ Boris bloody Johnson and his stupid bloody rings!'

She toes her shoes off in the entry and James is nearly doubled over with laughter as he drops his shoes beside hers.

'So on the whole, you're not a fan?'

'I just,' Lily brushes her hair out of her eyes and starts off down the corridor towards the lounge. 'We're spending nine _billion_ pounds on this fucking shite. Think about what that money could do for the NHS. Or how many teachers you could hire!'

She sighs and settles onto the sofa. 'All that money could change lives. And we're using it to build a fucking stadium and everything else, and we're not even going to fairly increase the wages of our transportation workers. It just feels like a total waste.'

James sits down beside her, rests his arm along the back of the sofa, and starts rolling the ends of her hair through his fingers.

'I know,' he says. 'Most of this is already done, but that doesn't mean we can't protest it and demand better next time. And they're saying they're going to come in under budget, right? We can put that to use at least.'

Lily snorts. 'I'll believe _that_ when I see it.'

She sighs, shifts closer to him on the couch until their thighs are touching, and James watches as the expression on her face shifts, becomes one that's a bit familiar but that he can't quite read.

'Anyway,' she says, smiling, 'enough about austerity and our fucking government. I talk about that enough at work.'

'What do you want to talk about?'

She half shrugs, but James knows her too well to believe that she doesn't have something in mind. He can tell from the look on her face, the one that's just a little too innocent. She reaches over and rests her hand lightly on his knee, so softly that he can barely feel it there though his jeans.

'I was thinking,' she says, 'that we could continue the conversation we started in Liverpool.'

James knows exactly what conversation she's talking about. Remembers it vividly. Though, if he's honest, he remembers the way her skin had felt under his hands a bit more clearly, remembers the way her hair had fallen down around her shoulders after she'd peeled her shirt off.

He remembers the taste of her.

'What conversation?' he says now. He's hoping for a bit of time to start getting himself together because his brain is already starting to short circuit, but she just arches a knowing eyebrow and slides her hand further up his thigh.

'You know exactly what I'm talking about,' she says. Her voice is low, but the sound of it, coupled with her fingers tracing over his thigh — it goes right through him.

'I barely remember the conversation if I'm honest,' he says. He moves his hand from the ends of her hair, runs his fingers up her neck, along her jaw.

'What do you remember?'

Her voice is quiet, but it's taken on that quality he loves, that slightly rough, deeper sound that's begging him to come closer.

'I remember kissing your neck.'

He drops his hand to her hip as he leans in, his fingertips toying with the hem of her shirt as he brushes his lips against the side of her neck. He hovers there, lets his breath waft over her skin, kisses her again, wide smile on his face this time, when she shivers and fists a hand into the front of his jumper.

'I remember running my hands over your body.'

He slips his hand underneath her shirt and slides his hand slowly over her waist as he presses another kiss just underneath her ear.

'I remember the way you sounded when I had my mouth on you.'

He's planning to press another kiss to the side of her neck, but Lily turns, dips her head, and captures his lips with hers. He wants to smile, wants to tease her, but he can't, not when she's kissing him like this, like she wants him and is tottering on the very edge of her control because of it.

He runs his hands up the back of her shirt, spreads his fingers out over her skin, and presses her to him. She slides across the sofa, lifts herself up, and settles onto his lap, her hips hovering just above his. She brushes against him as she runs her tongue along his bottom lip, barely there, and she must know that it drives him mad because she does it again and again until he's practically panting into her mouth.

She's dipping her hips down again when she leans forward, grazing her teeth along his neck, and whispers, 'Take my shirt off,' into his ear.

She's going to be his undoing. He's going to break apart under her hands and he's going to enjoy every single moment of it.

He takes her shirt off.

It's not long before she's tugging the hem of his jumper up over his chest and pulling his jumper over his head.

Skin to skin, everything accelerates. He feels every ounce of his control slip as he gives in to what he's feeling for her, for the way her breasts feel pressed against his chest, the way she keeps biting his lower lip, the way she's running her hands over his chest. There are a million sensations and he can't quite isolate them but it almost doesn't matter because the combination of them all is going straight to his head and driving him out of his mind.

'James,' her voice is soft, but he has absolutely no trouble hearing her, pressed against him as she is. 'Would you mind if I took these off?'

She's breathing the words right into his skin and grazing her teeth against his neck and his chest is going to explode because at the same moment her fingertips are running along his stomach just above the waistband of his jeans. He's breathing too fast because he can't get a handle on himself, but all it's doing it making him lightheaded and she knows it, she knows _exactly_ what she's doing to him, and she smiles against his skin as she presses another kiss in the spot under his ear that she now knows makes him putty in her hands.

He turns his head and murmurs, 'Take them off,' before he kisses her again.

She smiles against his lips, and the fingers that had been tracing lightly over his skin move immediately to the button of his jeans.

She slips her hand inside his pants the moment his jeans are undone, and James groans, breaking the kiss, when her fingers brush against him. She moves to kiss his jaw.

'Is this alright?' She runs the flat of her palm over the length of him, and James bites back another moan.

He nods jerkily and Lily hums her acknowledgement as she kisses him again. She takes him in her hand, smiles against his lips when he moans — Lily is absolutely going to be the death of him and _god_ is it glorious.

She pulls her lips from his, trails soft, slow kisses down his neck, his chest. She looks up at him as she drops a kiss onto his hip, just above where his jeans had been, and he can't even begin to care about the sound that escapes him then.

Then she takes him in her mouth and nothing else matters.

She — _fuck_ — he winds his fingers in her hair and starts mumbling half coherent things, things like 'Oh my god, Lily' and 'fuck' and 'don't stop,' and he's not sure if she can understand him, but she doesn't stop and the tension is building and he can't seem to breathe fast enough.

She swirls her tongue around him and he groans, his fingers tightening in her hair before he remembers himself and loosens his hold.

Then she looks up at him and he's going to completely fall apart.

'Fuck, Lily, I — ' He groans again, louder this time. 'I don't — '

She pulls back immediately. James sits up more fully, reaches forward and takes her elbow, pulling her towards him until she's hovering over his lap. Her hands make their way into his hair and James smiles at the ease of that gesture as he leans forward and kisses her.

It's a bit softer than it had been before, and it's taking nearly all his energy for him to keep it that way. He wants to go faster, wants to let his desire for her burn him up, consume him, but now, this time, is not the time for that. There will be other times. This first time needs to be something different. He needs it to be different.

She seems to read the shift in him, because her hands start to move in longer, slower lines over his neck and shoulders, her lips move a bit more languidly against his. They're balancing on a knife's edge, he knows it, can feel the urge to speed up in the way she's moving her body against him, but she meets him where he is and _god_ if it doesn't make him melt for her.

James moves his hands between them, unhooks the button on her trousers.

He moves to kiss her neck then, trails slow, soft kisses along her throat as he moves his hand between her thighs.

She hums encouragingly against his lips and James slides his hand down the front of her trousers, brushes his fingers against her. She's so fucking wet, he mumbles as much against her lips, and she nods, takes his face in her hands and kisses him again, a bit harder than before.

She moans when he swirls his fingers over her clit and her voice is breathy when she says, 'I'll go get a condom?'

James hums against her neck. 'Yeah,' he kisses her pulse point and she shudders. He does it again.

She leans back and smirks at him before sliding back off his lap.

He intends to let her walk back into her room, to wait patiently, but then she stands up and hitches her hands over the waistband of her trousers and slides them slowly off her hips before turning and walking out of the lounge — and, well, that plan is completely abandoned.

She laughs when he hops to his feet and starts after her, is still laughing when he turns her round halfway up the corridor and presses his lips to hers.

He can't touch enough of her — he's running his hands over her hips, her back, her shoulders, but it isn't enough and she isn't close enough. She nudges her bedroom door open with her foot, walks them backwards into her bedframe, and though it isn't _quite_ where they're going, James uses the leverage to press her closer to him. She leans into him for a moment before she steps them back and starts them around the side of her bed.

She sits down on the side of her bed, breaking their kiss, and she smiles so brightly up at him, so jubilantly that he's pretty sure his heart is going to burst in his chest. James puts his hands down on the mattress on either side of her hips, drops light kisses onto her lips as he follows her back up onto the bed.

He can't keep the fucking smile off his face either, and he doesn't care if it makes him look a bit like a fool.

She hooks one leg around his waist when her head hits the pillow, pulls his hips down into hers, and he groans as she leans up to kiss him properly again. He kisses her back for a moment, but it isn't long before he moves to kiss her neck, down her chest, across her stomach, because he's been thinking about this, about her, since that first time in Liverpool and he needs to taste her again.

She sucks in a sharp breath when he drops a kiss on her hip, again when he kisses the inside of her thigh, and when he looks up at her then, propped up on her elbows so she can see him, her hair curling across her shoulders, her cheeks flushed just a touch — when he looks up at her then, he can't believe that he waited as long as he did, that they kept themselves from being together like this.

He leans forward, puts his mouth on her, and groans when one of her hands moves immediately to his hair.

He loves figuring out what she likes, what makes her moan, what makes her muscles shake, what makes her want to press herself closer to him. He moves one arm from underneath him and lays it across her hips, lifts up a bit so he can slide his other hand up between them and curl one, two fingers inside her.

Her hips immediately press up into his arm, and though the sound of her moaning his name — something he's absolutely committing to memory — makes him want to go faster, to give her exactly what she wants, he keeps the slow, steady pace he's had, lets the tension build until she's panting underneath him and she can't keep still.

He curls his fingers inside her just as he starts flicking his tongue over her clit and she immediately comes undone.

She sits up as he begins to move back over her, meets him in the middle. She pushes herself up onto her knees and James takes the hint, moves to the side so he can lie down where she'd been moments before. She grins against his lips as she hitches her leg over him and settles her hips above his, is still smiling when she moves to kiss his neck.

'You,' she says, grazing her teeth lightly against the bottom of his earlobe, 'are amazing. Fucking amazing.'

He runs his hands up her back, threads his fingers through her hair and pulls her mouth back to his.

The urgency that had been simmering just under the surface finally takes over — they're a mess of hands and she's kissing his neck, his chest, and he needs more of her, needs her immediately.

It's like she reads his mind because she leans over and starts rifling around in her bedside cabinet.

James kisses her collarbone, her breast, and then she's moving back, lifting up as she tears open the condom packet.

She pauses then, takes a moment to look at him. He can only imagine what he looks like, glasses crooked as hell on his face, hair probably a complete disaster, but she's looking at him with this look on her face, one that fills him up and makes his heart stutter in his chest.

He knows he shouldn't, not when she's trying to put a bloody condom on him, but he can't help it. He sits up then, just a bit, and kisses her softly. She smiles against him, presses her forehead to his for a moment when he pulls back.

'You sure?'

He's not sure what she's asking about — having sex right now, the relationship they're building, something else entirely — but he doesn't really need to know.

'Yeah,' he says, and he presses his lips to hers again before he lays back down on the bed. 'I'm sure.'

She leans back and slides the condom down over him, takes a moment to adjust her hips over him, and then she's sinking down onto him and everything else ceases to exist. His hands jump immediately to her hips as she lifts up again and this, _this_ — she's perfect, they're fucking perfect, and he should be mildly embarrassed by the way that he's already mumbling incoherently, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care.

He loves watching the lines of her as she moves over him, the curve of her hip as it meets her waist, the arch of her neck, the way her hair falls around her shoulders. She leans forward and braces her hands on either side of his head and the change in angle is glorious — she moans into his neck and his hands tighten their grip on her waist and he doesn't know how she's keeping up this pace but he is losing himself in it, in her, and so he doesn't care how she's keeping it up so long as she continues to do so.

'Lily, I — ' He's practically digging his fingers into her hips but she doesn't seem to mind and she knows exactly what he wants because she doesn't stop moving, just keeps moving until he can't fucking take it anymore and the tension in him breaks.

She kisses his neck as his eyes fall closed, murmurs things he can't quite catch against his skin. She rolls off of him a moment later, dropping a kiss to his chest as she goes, and James pushes himself up onto his side, catches her lips with his. She leans into him, reaches her hand up and runs it along his jaw, and though he wants to continue this, he really needs to get this bloody condom off.

He tells her as much before he rolls out of bed and pads out of the room.

Lily's leaning, completely nude, against her door frame when he emerges a moment later, her hair swept over one shoulder, and James nearly stumbles when he catches sight of her. She just raises a cheeky eyebrow at him as she starts down the hall, and James thinks, for a second, that she's going to kiss him again, but then she grabs him by the arm, drags him out of the bathroom, and shuts the door on him while saying something about having to use the toilet.

He's lying in bed when she returns, and she falls back in beside him, rolls onto her side so that she can face him.

'God.' He wraps his arms around her the moment she settles in and pulls her to him, buries his face in her neck. 'We could have been doing that for years.'

She laughs, her breath hot against his skin, and pulls back to look at him.

'We never did talk about what took you so damn long.'

He nudges her leg with his knee. 'You weren't proactive yourself, Evans.'

She grins. 'True.'

'And,' he runs his hand down her back, up over the curve of her hip, 'It's not like I avoided the conversation. _Someone_ kept distracting me.'

She smiles, shifts closer to him, weaves her fingers through the hair at the base of his neck.

'I'm not sorry about that.'

He laughs, presses his fingers into her hip and pulls her more firmly against him.

'I know you're not.'

She's still smiling when she leans forward and kisses him. He lets himself get lost in her again, in the feeling of her skin under his hands, the way her hair almost feels like water when it runs through his fingers. He lets himself lean into this because they've spent too long avoiding it and they have a lot of catching up to do.

Still, he can't help himself.

'Seriously, though,' he says a few minutes later, pulling back a bit. 'Why'd you wait?'

She half shrugs as she moves her hand, runs her thumb along his jaw. He thinks she might be trying to distract him at first, but she doesn't move to kiss him again. Just studies him and runs her fingers over his skin.

'I wanted to be sure,' she says, and it doesn't matter that her voice is quiet because her words are reverberating through him.

'I needed to be sure.' She runs her thumb back across his jaw, trails her fingertips down the column of his neck. He's positive that she can hear his heart hammering in his chest, feel his pulse against her fingertips as she moves, but if she can, she doesn't say anything. She just looks at him steadily, evenly, like she's saying the most important thing in the world, and he can't help the way that he feels when she's looking at him like that, like his heart is suddenly too big for his chest.

'I didn't want to change everything between us on a whim, because I knew that once I did — with you… I mean, James.' She leans forward and brushes her lips lightly against his, stays close.

'You're everything to me.'

He can't help himself. He knows they're talking now, but the way she's looking at him, the way she's threading her leg through his — he moves his hand from her hip to the small of her back and kisses her.

She rolls onto her back almost immediately, pulling him with her so he's hovering over her. She smiles through their kiss when she feels him against her thigh — he breathes a laugh as he moves to kiss her jaw, up the side of her neck.

'Sorry.'

He kisses that spot underneath her ear that makes her shiver and he isn't disappointed. She pulls his shoulders so his weight settles more firmly on top of her.

'I'm not.'

'We're talking,' he says, but he runs his hand up her side, brushes his thumb along the underside of her breast.

She wraps her leg around his waist, pulls his hips against hers. 'Are we?'

He chuckles against her neck. 'Yes,' he says. 'At least I'm trying to.'

She huffs, but smiles against his lips when he moves to kiss her again.

'You're everything to me, too,' he says, pulling back just enough that he can get the words out. He shifts his weight to one arm, reaches up and brushes a piece of hair out of her eyes, lets his fingers trail through her hair before he cups her cheek and brushes his lips against hers again.

'I was an idiot,' he whispers against her lips. 'I felt so much for you for so long and I never said a damn thing.'

She threads her fingers through the hair at the base of his neck, one of the little things she does that is rapidly becoming something he loves more than anything, and smiles at him, this one warm and soft and emotional and perfect.

'We're here now, though,' she says.

He nods, and _god_ she's so beautiful, looking up at him like that. Her eyes are bright, that vivid green he's always loved, he can just see the hint of freckles there across the bridge of her nose, the ones that bloom across her cheeks every summer, her hair is a bit of a wreck from having had his hands in it, and she has never been more beautiful than she is right now. Right now when everything is ahead of them, when they're _sure,_ when everything they've been is shifting seamlessly into everything they are.

He's so full of her, so full he's fit to burst, and the smile on his face is only the surface of it as he leans forward and presses his forehead to hers.

'Yeah,' he says. 'We're here now.'


End file.
